The U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in February when the official unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. But the real unemployment rate was 14.3 percent. That rate, also calculated by the Labor Department, takes into account workers forced to settle for part-time jobs and those who were jobless for so long that they gave up hunting for work. The real unemployment rate has barely budged off a high of 17.1 percent in April, 2010. Before the financial crisis began in the fall of 2008, the figure hovered between 9 percent and 11 percent. Sen. Bernie Sanders favors a massive effort to create jobs putting Americans to work rebuilding our energy system and making badly-needed repairs to crumbling roads, bridges, schools, water systems, railroads and other infrastructure projects. Instead, Congress this month let $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts by Sept. 30 begin to take effect, a decision that could wipe out 750,000 jobs by the end of this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.